Tag: Reading

I drank too much caffeine before bed and my sleep cycles were out of order again.

Dream 1

It was the first recurring dream I’ve had in a long while and I only remember a snapshot of it. I haven’t put the original onlineHere is the dream, yet, but it was the dream I had in July that inspired a story that tied a lot of ideas from dreams together mixed in with a hacker/anti-government corruption theme many of my stories have. The scene was of the guy in the women’s restroom who was on the run from “agents.” He was surprised I could see him and in the first dream, he gave me a message that I forgot by the time I woke up. He gave me a message in this one, too, I think, but I only remember the scene and thinking, “WOAH. This is happening again?”

Dream 2

I remember trying to remember this one, but….I don’t. I know it’s in my brain somewhere and I will randomly remember it when I’m writing something similar.

WAIT! I remember dates – 11/12/17 and maybe 11/13/17? I remember thinking, “That’s in the past.”

Dream 3

This one seemed long. I was working as part of the management team in a hotel/office building. It was a concrete highrise and the design of the building was very blocky and cube-like and the sides of the “cubes” were large windows. I remember seeing the ceiling-mounted fluorescent lights through them.

One guy came in wanting a room, but for some reason uncontrollably peed everywhere. I backed away and used my clipboard to block it, telling him he could aim away from people. I thought he was rude for not doing so and decided to put him on the hotel’s blacklist. I think this was one of those things to make me realize it was a dream, but of course, I just thought it was a weird thing happening in waking life.

There was a small scene about air filters for the furnace. (In waking life, I just replaced my air filter.)

I remember a couple coming down to the lobby. The guy was older and Austrailian and his wife was 10-20 years younger than him. She was blond and they both were nice people. They said there was a fire in their room. I kept asking for their room number and I kept forgetting it and mixing up the numbers – it was like 4188 or 488 or something. The guy gave me a card or maybe it was on something we had on file for him, but I remember trying to remember his name that was printed on the card. It was in the form of an email address or something and looked like “steven.l.carey.au@ … au” I can’t remember it now. Note: I have no idea where that name came from.

I was going to go up and hopefully see the fire had gone out or to put it out myself when a coworker started telling people to evacuate the building. I asked why and if the fire had spread. Then, the fire appeared by the couple and they ran out with other tenants. I grabbed my keys and a coworkers’ keys and some other stuff near me. A coworker grabbed computer equipment.

We went outside and I said repeatedly, “Has anyone called 9-1-1???” I would have but my hands were full. The coworker behind me moved the computer parts in her arms to get out her cell phone. I said, “Have someone else do it, your arms are full.” Then, I heard alarms and said, “Finally!” The coworker said, “Yeah, that was me.”

I remember navigating through a flooded parking lot/yard with stone barriers and planned to look back at the building, but I woke up before I could.

I don’t have time to write these out, but here are some notes so I don’t forget to maybe add them to a story I started.

Some dream where I wandered into a “farm” like area with a sign that it was the [can’t remember the first name] C. Smart Center. A guy with bandages on his head came in, closing the gate as if he were keeping something dangerous out. He looked relieved he wasn’t alone and said something about it, but said he was glad he wasn’t the only one sick. I got angry and confused and argued with him I wandered in. I wasn’t told to be there and if I were sick, it was because I was talking to him (if he was sick) so closely.

I remember passing out fliers that cost $12 for some reason. After I woke up, I realized there was a message on them I should have read and could have read since all the dreams I had that night involved reading.

I remember hearing banging coming from the kitchen. I wasn’t dressed, so I covered up with a towel and went to see what was going on. The back door lock was turning as if someone was struggling with the lock. I thought maybe my landlord needed to enter or something, but the door opened, knocking down the trash bin I have blocking the door and the intruder was some dangerous looking guy with missing front teeth. He seemed dangerous, but I think he was smiling more at the fact he was successful at getting the door open than actually wanting to do harm. He had a little of that “observer” feeling from dreams from years ago.

There was a character that said to me that he was trying shared dreaming and I remember thinking I needed to reach out to him in waking life to tell him it worked. I can’t remember who it was and I’m not about to ask every guy I know.

A lucid dream where I was able to read a sign aloud. The grammar was bad, but the logo looked like a V inside of a V – similar to the Viacom logo, but backward and one V was skinny. It was gold and I keep thinking I’ve seen it on some kind of VHS in the past. Later in that dream, I toured a technology area being run by some Asian company. They said we can look all we want because they’ll erase our memories or block what is secret. It made me wonder why would you even WANT to look at something you’ll know you’ll forget and would you even remember looking at all? Would it be erased memories or would it be like alcohol that prevents memories from even being made?

Going with my story, I questioned if we’d give consent and if we forget giving consent to having our memory erased, would it really be ethical and really be consent? I mean consent in research projects, etc. usually is something you can know you made a decision to do and can change your mind. If you don’t remember giving consent or even remember what you gave consent to, how would that even work? What if what you volunteered to forget is a threat to your life, which you could remedy, but only if you knew the cause and existence of the threat?

I remember sitting in a helicopter, strapped in with a strap on each shoulder. I’ve never flown in a helicopter, so I don’t know how realistic it was. One weird thing was that I was sitting above the pilot and other passenger and I could only see through a window that was below where I was sitting. I was disappointed because I love heights and wanted to watch as we were flying.

We landed near a place with yellow tape. When I got out, I saw we were in a really pretty city with skyscrapers. The other passenger was some “official” person (I called her a handler in my dream) who was around my age. She was dressed in a nice business outfit and I remember knowing she was a nice person. The helicopter pilot was a good-looking guy around my age and was in a military uniform.

The helicopter guy left and I went to one of the buildings to use the restroom. The toilet wouldn’t flush and the stall wasn’t lit well. I left to have someone else fix it.

The woman checked me into a fancy hotel suite. It looked at least 3 stars, but most likely 4 stars. I don’t remember looking outside, so I think the curtains were drawn. The colors were a nice burgundy and cream color. I kept thinking the room was too large for one person – it seemed larger than one of my past apartments!

I was bored, so I walked around and realized I had been there before! There was a small meeting room across from the bathroom. I went in there and found the materials from the event I remember attending. It was a small training class to go over some management thing. I found a “workbook” with a faded/pastel orange cover with stock photos of people working together. It appeared to have been partly damaged by water and then shoved in a bag or box for months. I found a bag that belonged to a coworker and looked through it. I found two pairs of nice motorcycle gloves and remembered our training session was in the winter and he said he would always forget his gloves there and bring new ones and end up with several pairs. There was also a bag inside that I now I think was a rifle of some sort. The main bag was thin and padded and could unzip almost completely.

Later, I checked what was behind the door to the hotel suite, expecting a hallway. Instead, it led out to the lobby. I closed the door and noticed a taped sign that said “Wet Paint” (or repaint?). I turned to go back to the bed and heard what sounded like a cart being pushed along a wooden floor. I woke up thinking someone was in my apartment.

Slept for 12 hours after a week of not having enough sleep and too many nightmares.

You Guys Would Get Along

I remember a scene where I was sitting at a long table in a cafeteria and the guy next to me nudged my elbow with a pencil. He was a guy that the guy I was seeing didn’t like and thought was dangerous and on the evil side. I wasn’t supposed to be talking to him – not just because my boyfriend didn’t trust him, but because we were working undercover for something and weren’t supposed to show we knew each other.

Eventually, the guy on my right tore off a piece of a magazine (a piece with a forwarding part that appears when you change your address) and wrote on it that my boyfriend shouldn’t be trusted because he could kill three people in one shot. He was a sniper, but I trusted both guys equally – I didn’t care if they had jobs that weren’t necessarily “good” or “safe” as long as I wasn’t a target. They both believed they were doing “good” through “not-so-good” deeds anyway.

I thought about that when I read his note. I crumbled up the paper and grabbed a notepad and a pencil and started writing, “you…” and messed up the “u” and frustratingly pushed something out of my way to write. I thought, “This is supposed to be short, why write out the word instead of just ‘u?'” I fixed the “u” and finished the sentence: “…guys would get along.”

Lost in the White House, but Not THE White House

I remember going on a family vacation with my parents – I finally got them to go to Washington, D.C.!

I woke up in the passenger seat of a car driven by my dad and my mom was sleeping in the back. I realized we passed this large mansion on the top of the hill with these large tall windows for the second time. I remember calling it “The White House, but Not THE White House.” I laughed and found out my dad got lost and we were in Virginia.

This turned into us being IN the house as part of a dream game. I remembered being there before and that the house was a maze. My dad apologized for getting lost and I said, “Don’t worry about it, I want to try to get us out of here using my memory of the first time I was here.” I had my mom sit comfortably somewhere because I remembered the insane amount of walking I did when I tried to find my way out the first time.

I remember pointing out a spot in one of the rooms explaining to my dad that a large brown chest was between two couches the first time I was there. I remember the open doorways with the rounded corners going into the area where the windows overlooked the hill. I remember REALLY liking that room when I was there the first time, which I remembered was some fancy schmancy political fundraiser and I remember having a conversation with a nice white-haired lady who held a glass of red wine, but she never drank it. I don’t know if I ever wrote down this dream.

The maze-like rooms had a grayish-white color with burgundy highlights.

This turned into something else with glass doors that closed to block people out. This happened twice as a plant and I got frustrated later when they mentioned it AGAIN right before my mom got locked out of the area we were in. I thought, “I saw that coming – they should have mentioned it ONCE earlier so the threat was in the back of the mind to increase tension, not keep telling us.”

I remember entering a building and going around a “zig-zag” to get to a hallway with studio apartments on the right. Each one had a window facing a lot with two strip malls on the same level. I had my family and friends over and everyone drank all of my energy drinks I just bought. When they left, I looked out of the window hoping to see a corner store that might sell the drinks I like so I could walk over tomorrow despite the cold. I didn’t see anything related to energy drinks.

I decided to look out of the other side of the building or go out and look beside the building. On my way back, I couldn’t find my apartment/room. I looked and looked. I couldn’t remember the number – 417? 419? When I woke up, I wondered how 400s rooms would be on the main level. I’m guessing the building was built into a hill.

I even asked a guy at a kiosk if he remembered what door I came out of and he said he didn’t. I tried each door, knowing I left mine unlocked. However, so did everyone else, so I kept opening them, seeing the belongings of someone else in each (one was an old lady, one was a middle-aged woman, one was a gay couple, one was empty, etc.) or seeing the window position being different (the windows all had white vertical blinds, but were different sizes and different parts of the wall). I’d apologize and go to the next. The middle-aged woman said it was OK and that she has had to do the same.

I also remember the handles to open the doors were slightly different and tried to remember what mine looked like. I went up and down the hall and decided to go further and found an open fitness gym area and thought, “I didn’t know we had a gym here! AWESOME!” but assumed I’d have to pay a fitness coach (a couple walked around the area) to use the area. The area was a neat dark blue with blue lights.

I walked back using my waking-life navigational skills and recognized the entrance I took to get in the building and the “zig-zag,” but I still couldn’t find my apartment. I thought I’d walk toward the entrance I went to before, checking the apartments on the way. I found the guy couple’s apartment and they were nice and tried to help me. I noticed when talking to them that the strip malls outside were replaced by a neat courtyard with trees and a park with a stone path around the trees.

You’d think I’d eventually catch on that I was dreaming. Instead, my brain went right to, “Woah, do you think this is time travel?” For some reason, time travel (which I enjoy writing about, but I’m skeptical of) was more likely than me being asleep.